


Three Ghosts

by warriorsaralance



Series: Three Ghosts [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas fic, F/M, in which leonard snart is basically uncle scroodge, its gonna have one big fluffy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-11 13:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8980912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorsaralance/pseuds/warriorsaralance
Summary: Leonard Snart - or Captain Cold, as he prefers to be called now - is a great addition to the Legion of Doom. Having been close with the team at first, he knows how to hit all of their weak spots. He gets to do what he wants, steal what he wants, rob whoever he wants. Not a single thing in the world could change it. Until three mysterious figures show up, in attempt to set the crook back on the right path.A Christmas Carol story.





	1. The Ghost of Christmas Past

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there friends!  
> So I wasn't really going to write a christmas fic, as I'm working on a (currently unuploaded) multichapter fic, but then Christmas spirit struck and I felt the need to write a christmas fic anyways. You know how it goes. This fic is a bit of a mess, since I wrote it relatively quickly without a beta, so all mistakes are mine!  
> It consists of three chapters, all of which represent one ghost: the ghost of christmas past, christmas present and christmas future.  
> Warnings for domestic abuse in the first chapter.  
> Hope you enjoy!!

Len drops himself on his kingsize bed and lets out a sigh. Today was another good day for the Legion. They'd managed to wreak havoc in 1943, just enough to let the Nazi's win World War Two. It would keep the Legends busy for a while, while they could start executing their actual plan, which was to meet up with Vandal Savage in 2166 and bring him back to 2016, where they would devise a plan to take over the world.

It's a cliché bad guy thing to do, he knows, to take over the world, and he didn't even necessarily have his reasons for wanting it, but the pay was good, and Merlyn, Darhk and Thawne pretty much let him do whatever he wanted, which was a comfortable change.

His life with the Legion of Doom - as they like to call themselves - is pretty good. He has money now, and he gets to rob banks whenever he wants. It's not perfect, but it's all he needs.

His period with team Legends turns out to be rather helpful at times, especially when they have to take on either Mick or Sara, who he got to know best.  
He doesn't miss them, not one bit.

After the Oculus exploded, he was scattered across time and was eventually pieced back together by the Legion of Doom. His precious Legends team, who he had hoped would come save them, were nowhere in sight. They'd left him, and he was angry.

When the Legion told him about how they'd replaced him, he was hurt. How could they have done this to him?

After a while, he learned that the Legends never really cared for him. They just used him, that's what they'd done. But you don't mess with Leonard Snart and come out unscathed. So he's going to make them pay.

* * *

He's about to turn around and go to sleep, when there's a knock on his door. He knots his eyebrows together in confusion. It was about one am. _Why would anyone knock on the door at this hour?_

He lays still for a couple of minutes and listens, but the knocking continues. Eventually, it becomes so loud that he's scared he might scare the neighbours. He might be a supervillain now, but he still lives in the city and he still has neighbours who definitely don't like it when they're woken up at one am because of someone knocking on Len's door.

With a sigh, he climbs out of bed and pulls on some jeans before staggering towards the door.

He opens up and leans towards the doorway, peering into the darkness. There doesn't seem to be anyone there. He is about to close the door, when he hears a little cough come from below. Confused, he glances down and sees a young girl sitting on his doorstep.

"Excuse me sir," she looks up, "You're Leonard Snart?"

Len gets only more confused. _What the hell is this little girl doing on his doorstep in the middle of the night, and how does she know his name?_  he thinks. "Um, yes, I am." he stammers.

"Great!" The little girl skips past him into the hallway, and is well on her way to the kitchen before he can even call her back. Letting out a sigh, he closes the door and follows the girl to the kitchen.

"What are you doing here?" he drawls.

She opens up a few cabinets, searching the shelves until she finds what she's looking for. She opens up the cookie jar (god knows why Len even _has_ a cookie jar) and begins to munch on a cookie. "I'm delivering a message." she says.

"What kind of message?" he asks her, while he's searching for the light switch. Something about this girl - other than the fact that she appeared in the middle of the night and entered his house like it was no problem - was bothering him, he just couldn't explain the tingly feeling he got whenever he was around her.

 _Got it._ He flicks the switch and the kitchen fills with light. He turns back to the girl and he sucks in a breath. Now that he sees her face, her entire face, not a shadow hidden by her hair, he recognises her in an instant.

Sure, she's younger now, and he hadn't even recognised her voice, but he would recognise those brown curls and soft brown eyes anywhere.

In front of him, in some weird impossible way, is sitting the younger version of his sister, Lisa.

She continues munching on the cookie, as if nothing had just happened and as if Leonard isn't staring at her in complete disbelief.

"I'm here to tell you about your past."

Len shakes his head, trying to get rid of the image of her. This must be a dream.

"Oh, shaking your head won't get rid of me. And this is not a dream. It's real, Lenny," she pauses, then frowns, "Well, as real as you could say a ghost is, really. How real is a ghost?"

Len is still standing next to the light switch, blinking. "You're a- You're a what?"

"I'm a ghost!" the girl tells him excitedly, while she wipes cookie crumbs off her face. She can't be older than ten, Len guesses. He shakes his head. It doesn't matter how old she is, because she's not real. She's not here. Whatever is going on in his head needs to stop.

"I'm not in your head," the girl says, as if she can read his mind. "I'm here to show you the past. See, over the course of the next days, you will be visited by three ghosts. The Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Future. They will all show you something, and hopefully you'll learn from them." she explains to him as if it's the most ordinary case of the world.

"And what if I don't? Come with you, I mean." he leans his head back against the wall and lets out a sigh. This is so not how he expected his friday night to go.

"You have no choice."

Before Len is able to ask what she means by that, he feels a tug in his stomach and when he opens his eyes again, he's not at home. He recognises where he is, though. He's at his father's house, and judging by the small christmas tree in the corner, he guesses it's christmas evening.

He hears the front door close and turns around to find his younger self standing there. "I, um, I can explain." Len begins, but his younger self doesn't seem to notice him at all. In fact, he walks right past older Len, and doesn't even hear him.

"Oh right, I forgot to tell you that, they can't see or hear you. You're just a ghost, like me." Younger Lisa tells him.

Meanwhile younger Len is standing by the christmas tree and uncovers a few wrapped gifts from his bag and places them under the tiny christmas tree. Older Len follows his younger self up the staircase, into Lisa's bedroom. In the pink bedroom in the corner is an old, creaky twin bed in which a young Lisa - the same age as the ghost - is sleeping peacefully.

Younger Len sits on the edge of her bed and gently rubs her cheek. She stirs a little at the touch, but continues sleeping.

Downstairs, a door slams closed, followed by loud footsteps, signaling that their father was home, and that he was not in a good mood.

Young Len lets out a sigh and leaves the bedroom to go downstairs, closing the door softly behind him. Older Len follows him back downstairs.

"What's this?" Lewis Snart points towards the stack of presents under the tiny christmas tree.

"It's just some christmas presents, I thought it would be nice for Lisa to -" Young Leonard answers his father while keeping his eyes to the ground.

Suddenly, waves of memory hit Older Leonard and he remembers this one night that the Ghost has decided to show him. "No," he stammers back. "Bring me back."

Young Lisa shakes her head. "You've hidden these memories for far too long, Lenny." she tilts her head and smiles that innocent smile of hers, that she would always use on her brother whenever there was something she wanted. It was many years later, but he still couldn't resist that face.

"Fine." He sighs, and sits down on the couch and leans back. "But I don't have to pay attention."

Even though they're ghosts, he can feel the couch budge a little when Lisa joins him. "But then you'd not learn what the meaning is of all of this."

"The meaning of this? You mean of revisiting possibly one of the worst christmases I ever had? Surely it's to spread the christmas spirit." he drawls.

In front of them, the conversation between father and son has escalated. Lewis Snart is now yelling at his son, while Lisa, who was woken by the commotion, comes downstairs.  
"It's not to show you any christmas spirit, I know we never really had any of that growing up," Her eyes are focused on her hands, which are in her lap. "I know you tried to give that to me anyways. This is why I'm showing you. You might not think of yourself as a hero, but you're a hero to me." She looks directly at him when she says those last words, and he can tell by her eyes that she's being sincere.

Lewis Snart raises his voice at his daughter, yelling at her to go back to bed. Her little body is trembling and she's visibly terrified of her father. When she doesn't move fast enough, he raises his hand in the air, but young Leonard is there to catch his arm. Their father turns to him, his eyes full of rage.

Older Leonard can only watch, feeling completely helpless. He cursed the Ghost that held the shape of his little sister. What's the point of showing this? Of remembering all of the hurt?

Young Len stands in front of Lisa and gestures for her to go upstairs. The girl instantly obliges to her brother and runs up the stairs. Len follows her, but not before being punched square in the jaw by their intoxicated father. He runs up the stairs after Lisa, pushes her into her bedroom and closes the door behind them. He moves her closet in front of the door so that they're both locked in. He immediately reaches out to her and wraps her arms around her. Her entire body is trembling, and there are tears streaming down her face. They can hear their father pounding on the door.

"Shhh," he whispers in her hair, "I'm gonna protect you, okay?"

She nods. He knows it's a useless promise, because he can't protect her from their father all the time, but he'll try to as much as he can.

Older Leonard Snart is sitting in the corner of young Lisa's bedroom, watching them. He remembers this night more and more now, the way their father yelled at them, the way Lisa trembled when he held her. It breaks his heart.

Young Leonard Snart does the only thing he can think of at that moment to get them out of the situation, without considering the possible repercussions of his actions. He just needed to get Lisa out of there, that was all that mattered. She deserved one safe, happy christmas. He reaches in his pocket and calls the one person in this damn town that he can trust.

"Yeah?" the rough voice on the other side of the line answers.

"Mick, I need you to get us out of here."

There's silence for a few seconds, then the sound of someone grabbing their coat. "I'm on my way." He says and hangs up.

Leonard lets out a sigh of relief and kisses the top of his sisters head. "It's gonna be okay." he tells her, even though he's not entirely sure of that.

Older Len is staring at them in disbelief. This is not how he remembered this night going. In his memory, they stay locked in Lisa's room throughout the entire night, he eventually managing to calm her down enough so she could sleep. The next morning they emerged and went downstairs, only to find their father passed out on the couch. He didn't remember a thing from the night before.

This version of the story, however, is completely new to him.

He turns towards the Ghost of Christmas Past, or his sister, or whatever he was supposed to call her. "This isn't what happened."

She looks at him and raises an eyebrow. "Is it?" She hops down from the desk she'd been sitting on, "After you were retrieved from the timeline, you were missing a lot of memories. They are still coming back to you, I know that. Isn't it possible that some of the memories you've been remembering are fake?"

He shakes his head. "No, it's impossible. How would I even know the difference?"

"I think you can tell," she says, "you just won't admit it to yourself that you might have been wrong."

The front door opens and they can hear loud footsteps, followed by someone clumbsily running down the stairs. Younger Leonard lets out a sigh of relief. Lewis had followed the sound of Mick entering and gone downstairs to check, just as Len expected. Meaning that they had time to get out of there.

He moves the desk away from the door, lifts his sister, who is still trembling and on the verge of tears, up and carries her down the stairs.

Older Len follows them down the stairs with a pained look on his face.

Len makes eye contact with Mick across the room and the two immediately spread the tasks. Mick walks past Lewis towards the tiny christmas tree and grabs all of the gifts Len had bought for his sister. Len walks towards the kitchen, grabs a pack of chocolate chip cookies, Lisa's favourite, and a few other foods, before he turns back to his friend, Lisa still sitting on Leonard's back, leaning against him, her hands trembling.

The two men walk out the door, without saying another word to the corrupt cop standing in the living room, speechless, and slam the door closed.

And just like that, Older Len is back in his own apartment, in 2016, in his kitchen in the middle of the night.


	2. The Ghost of Christmas Present

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooo! Here is chapter two! I hope I can upload chapter 3 tomorrow, but I'm not sure if I have a lot of time to write, since I'll mostly be spending time with my family. That, and the fact that my laptop is acting weird, and like half the keyboard doesn't work properly. So we'll see.

The morning after his adventure with the time Ghost, he's woken up by the buzzing of his phone. He opens one eye and unlocks his phone to see what the fuzz is about. He sighs when he sees he has a missed call from an anonymous number. Probably someone from the Legion, or one of their henchmen, or whatever.

His suspisions from last night are confirmed when he tries to get out of bed, but finds himself falling back onto his bed, too tired to even move.

He did _not_ get a lot of sleep last night.

After he had been dumped into his kitchen by the ghost, he immediately went back to bed, hoping that when his head hit the pillow, he'd fall asleep, and the next morning he woke up and he wouldn't remember a thing.

Unfortunately for him, that wasn't the case. He spent most of the night tossing and turning, wondering if there was some truth to what the ghost in the shape of his sister had told him. Some part of him refused to believe it was true, that any of it was true, it just didn't make any _sense_. How could that have happened? What if someone did this to him? But, how? And why?

Another part of him, however, doesn't have that many questions. This part of him doesn't hesitate to accept this as the truth. Someone messed with his memories, and he knows exactly who.

He refuses to believe that side of the story, It's too ridiculous to believe that someone messed with his mind. Besides, who's to say someone isn't messing with his mind now? It could easily be the Legends team trying to win him back.

 _Yeah,_ he thinks to himself, _that makes a lot more sense._ He ignores the uneasy feeling in his stomach and goes about his day, pretending that nothing happened.

* * *

That evening, there's another knock on his door and he doesn't even need to open the door know who's there. It's the second ghost, the ghost of Christmas Present.

Len sighs and sits up in bed. "Come in." he drawls, not wanting to get up from his comfy bed.

The front door opens and footsteps can be heard in the hallway. The footsteps walk through the huse, pausing shortly in the living room before continuing to the bedroom, where Len is still sitting in bed.

The bedroom door creaks open and Rip Hunter enters the room.

"Ah, I thought I'd find you here." the Brit says.

Len scoffs. "You're supposed to be the second ghost?"

Hunter nods. "I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present."

"But you're not dead." Len states.

Hunter nods again, then adds. "Neither was your sister."

Len shrugs. "Good point."

"Shall we go, then?" Rip holds out a hand to Len for him to take.

Reluctantly, Len takes his hand, and he's being dragged through time and space. Everything spins around him and when it finally seems to stop, he can hear laughter in the distance. As his vision clears, he recognises the location where Rip has brought them. They're on the waverider. In the middle of the kitchen stands a giant table filled with food. Around the table are the Legends. Some he knows, like Sara, Mick, Ray, Jax and Stein. Two others he recognises from their few run ins, but doesn't know by name. They seem to be having fun. Leonard feels a pang in his heart when he sees them, happy as they are.

Then he notices that someone is missing. He turns to Rip. "Why aren't you there?"

Rip shrugs. "I sacrificed myself for the team. I'm lost in time, as we speak. But they'll find me again."

"Why are you so confident that they will? Didn't really work out that well for me." Len drawls as he leans against the door post.

Rip is looking at the table, where the team is laughing over something Ray said. "I have faith in them," he says simply, "You should, too."

Len narrows his eyes at his former captain. "I don't need them to save me."

Hunter turns towards Len. "Do you?"

Len is annoyed, and turns back to watching the group, ignoring the question.

Something has changed in the atmosphere on the waverider, but Len can't put his finger on what it is. He studies the group's faces and then notices Sara.

Where she had seemed rather happy and laughing just minutes before, she now looks gloomy, tired and most of all, heartbroken.

The other woman on the table, the one that Len doesn't know by name, reaches out to her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Sara nods, but she clearly isn't.

The other woman looks worried, but turns back to the group.

Before Leonard can ask what's going on, Rip tells him "It's her birthday today. And the two most important people in her life aren't there."

He frowns. "Who?"

"Her sister," Rip says, "and you."

Len is way too distracted by Rip mentioning Sara's sister, Laurel, that he doesn't even hear the second person Rip mentions. "Laurel? Did something happen to her?"

"She was killed," his former captain has a grave look on his face, "by Damien Darhk."

Leonard takes a step back, shocked. He wants to ask for more details, wants to know more, mostly wants to know why he doesn't know, but he's interrupted by Sara standing up so fast that her chair tips over and clatters to the ground.

"Excuse me." she says, her eyes filled with tears as she flees the room.

Ray wants to go after her, but is held back by Mick. "Leave her." he grunts, before throwing back a beer in one go.

Len stares at Mick for a moment, taking in his old friend. He's clearly drunk, which is something Len has rarely seen. Sure, they used to drink a lot way back when, but Mick Rory got drunk, really drunk on only a handful of occasions. Seeing him like this, overly drunk, while the rest of the team doesn't even seem bothered by it, hurts him. His old friend is not okay, he's barely even holding up, in fact.

He leaves the room to go to the only other person he truly cared about on the team. He finds her in the library, going over the next mission's details, with tears in her eyes. He looks over her shoulder to see what she's working on, and he recognises the data instantly. They're still searching for ways to stop the Legion, to put out the small fires that the Legion of Doom has left all over history. They're so not ready for what's to come, it breaks his heart.

She looks so tired, so worn out, like she hasn't slept in a week.

And he sees this, he sees her, he sees Mick and he sees the team, _their_ team, and there is only one thought echoeing in his mind.

_This is all his fault._

_He did this to them. He left them behind, not the other way around._

Memories are flooding back to him, of the oculus, of Mick standing there, telling them to leave, but Len knocks him out and tells Sara to leave with Mick. She does, but not before she plants a kiss on his lips.

 _How could he have forgotten this? How could he have forgotten that he sacrificed everything for his friends, not because they forced him to, but because he_ wanted _to? Because he loved them._

He notices the swirling feeling in his stomach, which he recognises as hm being transported back to his apartment.

There, he falls to the floor,and for the first time since he can remember, he lets himself cry.

He had sacrificed everything for them, and he would do it all again in a heartbeat.

At that moment, he wishes for nothing but to return to his team, but he couldn't now, how could he? He had abandoned them. They would never let him back in. And they shouldn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, leaving kudos and for leaving comments! I'm not the most confident person when it comes to writing, so all of these gestures mean a lot!! Don't forget to tell me what you thought of this chapter!


	3. The Ghost of Christmas Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there friends!! here it is, the last chapter of Three Ghosts! I hope you like the ending!! :D I'm sorry I wasn't able to upload this earlier, but ya know, christmas is a crazy time.  
> BUT i'm really proud of this chapter as I'm usually not good at writing touchy-feely but i'm actually kinda happy with it so i hope you enjoy!!   
> also  
> hooooo boy did i cry while writing this.  
> it's gonna be an emotional ride, my friends.

"What the hell happened out there?" Damien Darhk slams his fists on the table and turns to Leonard. "Why didn't you kill her?"

Leonard shrugs, unfazed by the man in front of him. "If I remember correctly, you hired me to steal, not to kill." he drawls.

"Yeah, well you never had a problem with it before." Merlyn snarls. "So what's changed?"

Leonard is leaning against the wall. He shrugs and doesn't say anything.

"Are those Legends trying to get into your head again, Snart? Because your little 'mistake' nearly got us killed!"

"Okay, calm down." Thawne steps in, before Malcolm Merlyn can do anything. "Snart is just _tired_."

"Snart is standing right over here." Len drawls.

The last two days, this seemed to be happening more and more. Leonard was having doubts, about his memories, his team, all the things he'd been shown so far. The rest of the Legion had begun to take notice, especially Malcolm Merlyn was wary of Captain Cold and watched him all the time.

Today, for example, they were robbing a bank because they were in need of some money to bribe someone, and Leonard let an innocent woman go. She was innocent, and he didn't want to kill her. He'd had enough of the killings. He might be a lot of things, but he wasn't a serial killer, or anywhere as crazy as the rest of his team. However, the woman had gone off to warn the police, who had come into the bank, guns loaded and ready to fire. The team, surprised and vastly unprepared for the attack, only just managed to escape.

Malcolm quickly pieced together what had happened, which had let to Len being yelled at in their base of operations, while Damian Darhk and Eobard Thawne watched.

"I won't do it again." Leonard sighs. "Next time I'll just kill her." He grimaces and turns around ignoring Malcolm's protests.

Leonard returns to his apartment soon after but doesn't go to bed just yet, knowing that there would be another spirit visiting him tonight.

He lays on the couch and closes his eyes. The last couple of days had been tiring, to say the least. He'd been going over everything that Lisa and Rip had told him, wondering if it was true what they said, trying to figure out which memories were real and which were fake.

Most of all, he's trying to remember the Oculus, and what happened after that. But no matter how hard he tries, that part of his memory remains blank. So for now, he'll have to keep guessing if he's on the right side of the fight or not, but there's an uneasy feeling in his stomach that tells him exactly which side he's on.

It's not the good one.

But then again, when has he ever been on the good side?

The sound of something clattering to the floor interrupts Len's thoughts, and he sits up. "Hello?" he calls out, "Are you the last Ghost to visit me?"

He doesn't get a reply, but he can hear some shuffling in the kitchen. With his Cold Gun in his hands, he walks over there to check it out.

He sneaks into the kitchen and sees a woman standing behind the counter, with her back turned to him. "Don't move!"

The woman drops a plate, which clatters to the ground and shatters at the impact. She turns around and scolds him. "Lenny, you scared me! Look at what happened!"

The moment he sees the woman's face, he freezes.

 _No,_ he thinks, _this can't be. She can't be the Ghost of Christmas Future. This must be a joke._

"Mom?"

* * *

He can't stop looking at her.

He can't believe that this is real - well, some version of real, anyways - that she's standing in front of him. She looks older, he notices. Her hair has gone grey and she has wrinkles around her eyes and mouth.

He stands frozen in place, while she reaches down to clean up the broken dish. He should move to help her, she shouldn't clean it up herself, she might cut her fingers, but he can't move.

He just stands in front of her, in the kitchen, with his cold gun still raised.

"What …what are you doing here?" he manages to move his mouth to form those words, his movement is slowly coming back to him.

She stands up again and throws the broken dish in the trash can, then looks at him. "Why, I'm here to show you the future, of course!"

When Len still doesn't move, but only frowns, she adds: "Didn't Past explain this all to you? Oh she always forgets, I swear. Well dear, I'm here to show you-"

"I know what you're here to show me," Len interrupts, "I just don't get why _you_."

"Oh, that I understand. But I have my reasons, I promise. Now put that gun down, please."

Len sighs, but puts his gun on his kitchen counter. The moment he lets the weapon go, he gets the same icky feeling in his stomach as he used to get when travelling on the waverider. He closes his eyes to help with the nausea and tries to focus on his breathing.

When the swirling stops, he opens his eyes and he's standing in front of a big family home, his mother standing next to him, with a smile on her face.

The house is decorated with christmas lights, and the garden is covered in snow. There's a chimney on the roof, and out of the chimney comes smoke, signaling that someone is home. He can see a warm, cozy living room through the window, with a christmas tree in the corner. The only thing that seems to be missing in the entire scene is a white picket fence.

"What are we doing here?" he asks his mother.

"You'll see." she replies. Just after she said those words, a car pulls up in the driveway and an older man steps out.

Leonard's mouth drops open. "Is that…?"

"Yes," she lays her hand on his arm, "That's you."

With his mouth still agape, Leonard watches as the man - his older self - grabs his keys and opens the door. _So I'm not breaking in,_ Len thinks to himself, _that's interesting._

They follow older Leonard through the door into the house and are met by the scent of a delicious christmas dinner. "I'm home!" Older Leonard calls out, causing younger Leonard to stop dead in his tracks.

"I _live_ here?" he whispers to his mother.

"Yes, of course!" she whispers back, "What else did you think your older self could be doing here?"

Len shrugs. "I thought I was breaking in or something."

She slaps his arm. "God no, you're retired." When her son raises a skeptical eyebrow, she adds "Okay, maybe just a little retired."

Older Leonard steps into the living room and is immediately tackled by two dark haired kids. "Daddy!" they scream as they pile on top of him.

Younger Leonard stares at them, his mouth wide open once again.

"What..?" he turns to look at his mother, whose eyes are filled with nothing but pride. Seeing the look on her face is too much, so he turns back to the scene playing out in front of them.

"Come on kids, lay off the old man." a familiar voice fills the room. The two children stop and turn towards the woman who just entered the living room.

 _No, no, no,_ Len throws a glance around the corner to confirm his suspicions, but instantly regrets his decision. _This can't be. This isn't real. It's fake. It's an illusion._

His eyes well with tears as a very pregnant Sara enters the room and kisses Older Leonard, who had just gotten up after being tackled by his, well, _children._

"How's the little one?" Older Len asks.

"You mean this one?" Sara points to her stomach, "Yeah, he's still kicking."

"She." he smirks at her.

"Oh no, trust me, this one is a he."

"Hmm." Len nods, places a hand on her stomach and leans in to kiss her.

The entire scene, the home-y feeling around it, everything is just to much for young Len, and he runs out of the house.

He takes a deep breath and lets a couple tears run down his cheek before he wipes them away. He turns around to leave, go anywhere but here, when he finds his mother standing in front of him.

"Lenny."

"Don't call me that." he tells her, unable to keep his voice steady.

"Lenny, I needed to show you this."

"Why?" he is yelling at her now, unable to contain any of the pain, the anger, the sadness that he had cropped up for days. "You wanted to show me what I could never have? Just to mock me?!"

Her eyes fill with tears. "I didn't show you this to mock you, Leonard. I showed you this because this," she points to the house, " _this_ , is what you could have, if you opened up to the possibility."

Leonard stays quiet, except for a single sob that escapes his body, so his mother continues. "I ran away from you, Leonard. From you and Lisa. You both needed me, you needed someone to hold on to, someone to trust in the midst of the abuse, and I _left._ Do you know how often I think back to that decision? I regret it _so much_ , Len. I regret not turning your father in, I regret not taking you with me, I regret not _fighting_ for my family, for my happiness."

"Yeah, I feel really sorry for you." Len snarls, but he instantly regrets it when he sees the hurt look on his mother's face.

"You can snarl all you want," she continues, "but you're no different from me."

He collapses to the ground, not being able to stand with all of the hurt any longer, and he settles down on the step in front of the front door. "I'm nothing like you." he says, more to himself than to her.

"But you are, Len." she sits down next to him on the step. "You are running. You've known this entire time you've been with those men, you knew you were wrong. You knew you were fighting on the wrong side, you just refused to admit it to yourself. You were scared of the consequences, scared of how the Legends would react to your return. More importantly, how Mick and Sara would react. So you keep running, you refuse to face the problem head on."

"It will hurt." Len finally manages to say, his voice breaking.

"Yes, yes it will, my dear. But that's part of life. You have to accept that."

He rubs his hands over his face and lets out a shaky breath. "I … I can't. I can't do this. It's too crazy, I can't be a father, I -"

"Yes, you can." she interrupts him. He looks at her and her eyes are once again filled with tears, her face showing nothing but pride, but this time, he doesn't turn away.

"Do you remember the two dark haired kids who tackled your older self?" Len nods. "Their names are Tami and Celia, they're twins. You and Sara adopted them after finding them in a war zone caused by one of the time abberations. Their parents were killed in a fire, and you and Sara saved their lives. They were only five years old at the time, but when you had to drop them off at the local children's home, Tami refused to let Sara go. Celia climbed in your arms and refused to go anywhere without her sister, so you took them back to the waverider. You raise them together with Sara in Central City, and soon enough they're joined by a little sister, Laurel, named after Sara's sister."

She points back to the house, "That unborn boy will be named Michael, after both Rip Hunter and Mick Rory. You become a part of team Flash, with your cold gun it becomes a lot easier to stop speedsters. Sara is too, but she also travels to Star City on a regular basis to help team Arrow. Together, you raise four beautiful children and teach them love, kindness and compassion. They grow up to become the next generation's heroes. Tami becomes a lawyer, Celia a doctor. Laurel manages to become mayor of Central City and Michael becomes a scientist. They rock our world, they move _mountains_."

Hearing all of this, his eyes fill with tears once again, but this time with happy ones.

"And Mick?"

"Mick is happy too. He marries Amaya, and they have great kids who are besties with yours, giving you an excuse to see each other regularly and celebrate holidays together."

Len drops his head in his hands, now unable to stop the flow of tears.

"How…?" he stammers. "I couldn't-"

"You can, Leonard," she puts her hand on his leg as a way of comfort. "You can get all of this, you can _do_ all of this, you just need to stop running. Don't make the same mistake I did."

Suddenly he feels nauseous, and before he realises what's going on, he's back in his apartment. "No!" he yells, "No, come back! I wasn't done! I wasn't-" his voice breaks, and he falls to the floor, letting all of the tears come freely now. Sob after sob wrecks through his body and he lets his pain swallow him whole.

* * *

The next mission the Legion goes on, Leonard goes behind their teammates' backs and creates his own plan.

While Thawne, Merlyn and Darhk are distracted with wreaking havoc on history to create another diversion for the Legends, Len creates just a _little_ too much havoc, knowing that it's just enough to set off the waverider's detection system, but not enough for the other Legion members to notice.

Things get out of control when Merlyn freaks out over Len not strictly following the plan, which isn't _technically_ untrue, but Leonard needs them to believe it is until he can get out of there.

He finds himself in a warehouse, hiding out from the gunfight, waiting for his Cold Gun to recharge, when he hears the familiar sound of his weapon's companion piece.

He turns around to see Mick and Sara staring angrily at him, their weapons drawn and pointed in his direction.

The looks on their faces sting, but he hides it with a smirk. He lowers his weapon to the ground and raises his hands.

Mick and Sara look confused. "What are you doing?" Sara steps forward, her eyes narrowed at him. Mick is scanning their surroundings, probably thinking it's a trap.

"It's not a trap." He says, catching his former partner's attention.

Mick grunts. "Then what is it?"

"Can't you see?" Len asks them, as he kneels to the ground, his hands behind his head. "It's a surrender."

**THE END.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh that was it! I thought that might be a good place to end things. (also because this chapter is already the longest compared to the rest lol) I hope you liked this short fic :D  
> if you want to see more of my writing, please leave a comment!! i'm really insecure when it comes to writing so receiving comments is a big confident boost for me and motivates me to write more, so more comments = more writing!! :D  
> thanks for sticking with me through this three chapter emotional roller coaster of a fic, happy holidays!!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this, friends! Thank you so much for reading, and don't forget to tell me what you thought in the comments :D


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